1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of networking and, in particular, to network hardware inventory control and security. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for tracing missing or stolen network devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many electronic devices, such as laptop computers and cellular telephones, are becoming more compact and portable. While such portability is extremely convenient for the user, it has given rise to an increased risk of loss because such devices are easily lost or stolen. Previously, attempts have been made to provide means for retrieving lost or stolen items of various types.
The simplest approach is marking the item with the name and the address of the owner, or some other identification such as a driver's license number. If the item falls into the hands of an honest person, then the owner can be located. However, this approach may not deter a thief who can remove visible markings on the device. Password protection schemes are of dubious value in discouraging theft or retrieving an item. Although the data can be protected from theft, the computer hardware cannot be found or retrieved. Another approach has been to place a radio transmitter on the item. This has been done in the context of automobile anti-theft devices. The police or a commercial organization monitors the applicable radio frequency to try to locate a stolen vehicle. This method is not suitable for smaller items such as cellular telephones or laptop computers. First, it is inconvenient to disassemble such devices in order to attempt to install a transmitter therein. Second, there may not be any convenient space available to affix such a transmitter. Furthermore, a rather elaborate monitoring service, including directional antennas or the like, is required to trace the source of radio transmissions.
For devices having access to a network, there have been some methods devised that use the network to locate the device when it is stolen. For example, one method requires a software program to be installed on a network device that continually contacts a server to give its location. Such preinstalled software is expensive to implement across a large organization. The software package must be installed on all computers or devices to be secured, and network bandwidth is continually consumed by the software systems as they periodically broadcast the computers' locations over the network. This effectively increases the cost of network equipment and decreases the efficiency of the network. Moreover, hard drives are typically reformatted when a computer is stolen, which would effectively erase the tracing program.
Consequently, there is a need for a novel system for tracing computer hardware that reduces the implementation and maintenance costs seen in the prior art. It would be preferable if such a method and system did not require installation of specialized hardware or software on individual network devices, or require periodic reporting of the computer's location.